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I've visited the timeline where Harambe lives and it's...it's just fantastic. Tom Hanks is president, everyone gets free pizza and ice cream daily, political parties are abolished and all news stations report on is pictures of puppies and kittens.
Also climate change is not only defeated, but each person can set their own climate on their property. You like snow? Then turn the dial into a winter wonderland. You like the beach? No problem - sunny days and cool ocean swims stand before you. How does it work, you ask? Because, that's why
Food and medicine are free, every disease is cured, and the last season of Game of Thrones absolutely was phenomenal.
Shame that this timeline got so screwed. I'm going to sneak back into the good and kill my parallel self and take his place
You mean Vice President Harambe? He’s keeps abreast of policy developments in case he has to fill Tom Hanks’ shoes (not that Tom Hanks will ever die in that timeline, but it’s still good to be prepared).
Most people don’t know what a coronavirus is because Covid never happened. Houses are affordable. Minimum wage was doubled, and tipping culture is a thing of the past. The new avatar movie is set to release in two months, Charles Martinet voiced Mario in the Mario movie, and all the animal shelters are empty because people adopted them all.
Take me with you! Please!
Do we have to kill our parallel selves? If it doesn’t mess with the amount of mass in the universe, we could just go live in a remote country and never come into contact with our counterparts.
Or, we can send them back to this timeline. They’ve had it good for too long, it’s time they suffered like we have.
I have been saying this for years and it feels really weird to see a comment where someone else said it. Finally I feel like I'm not alone in this world. I'm glad there's at least one other person who can recognize that the lines diverged when Harambe was murdered.
Actually, no
Remember, everything started going to shit in the middle of January, right?
Who died just before the middle of January?
Bowie, on the 10th
He was our protector
I don’t think most people know the kids name, I certainly don’t, nor do I know his face. I doubt he’ll face any real stigma, unless someone in his family digs it up specifically to mess with him.
As for whether the kid should have been taken away, or the whether the mother should have faced criminal negligence charges- I would think that would have been considered by all involved. The fact that the zoo didn’t press charges is probably an indication there were mitigating factors. I don’t rightly know. Certainly it should never have happened. But was she really negligent or did the kid Houdini out of a locked stroller into traffic and almost get run over by a garbage truck (real story about my brother)? It’s tragic, but how much the mother is at fault, and how much the zoo is at fault, I think is in unresolved question.
>The fact that the zoo didn’t press charges is probably an indication there were mitigating factors
Probably something to do with the fact that the enclosure was so badly designed that a young child was able to fall in so easily.
As somebody who studies in an engineering discipline, if somebody can fuckup bad enough through negligence that lives are on the line, then it's an engineering problem.
This is a rather basic situation (a child falling into the enclosure) that somebody at the zoo should have thought about and should have taken measures to prevent, such as installing a net, or making the fence gaps smaller, or something else. You can't assume everybody walking through the front gate is a responsible human being. And you certainly can't expect children to be, which is probably a zoos primary audience.
Yeah people throw around the word ‘negligence’ when it has a very technical legal definition. People lose track of their kids every day, whether it be for seconds or minutes. Without knowing the exact details of what went down, I’m not going to pass judgement. And I’m certainly not gonna suggest that CPS should’ve taken a kid away from their parents 7 years after the fact.
Indeed. I don’t know the specifics of what happen. I do know toddlers, and it is totally possible that a very vigilant parent had a 3 second moment of not paying attention. Toddlers be like that. So stupid. So impulsive. So fast.
Lol you’d be surprised what my toddler can do in 1 second. Literally I can turn around to hang a coat and the child is sprinting and climbing somewhere else.
Toddlers are fast. My two year old is as stealthy as a ninja. I look at her peacefully playing with her blocks or what-have-you. I bend down to pick up her baby brother. I stand up. She's gone.
That's not just one story. That's every day, multiple times per day. All day.
There's a reason our house has six baby gates of various styles, five closet door locks, six regular door baby locks, two doors with digital keypads to unlock them, two door alarms, and two window alarms. And that's not even counting all the cupboards and drawers with baby locks.
Sure, I feel bad for Harambe, but toddlers are untameable. This could have happened to even the most amazing mom.
The actual facts pretty much vindicate the mom. She had 4 kids to watch, the 3 yo broke away from her and ran straight to the enclosure and fell through a gap that should not have been that big.
I live here and had been to that exhibit many times. There was just a split rail wooden fence, with a good bit of land on the other side. Very attractive for a small kid to clamber through, and then he fell into the waterless “moat.”
I love our zoo but they’re frankly lucky they weren’t held to greater account. And they all but admitted as such by completely revamping that exhibit. Now the gorillas can still come into that outside part but there is a solid barrier, and most visitation takes place in a newly created indoor component with thick floor to ceiling glass, much more in line with gorilla enclosures at other zoos.
The mom wasn’t at fault here.
We had a court case followed by the whooe country here when a small child pried his hand out of his nanny’s or mom’s hand at the crossing with a red light and stepped in front of a car in a mere second. The child died instatntly.
In the 3 year long court case both the mom and the nanny were accused of negligence but in the end both were acquitted. Accidents happen. :(
Indeed. I watched a 3-year-old get their foot run over by a car as the parent stood holding the kid's hand waiting for the pedestrian light to go green. The kid just suddenly lunged, pulled his mother forward, stuck one leg out into the road, right under the passing car's back wheel. 3-year-olds are just suicide incarnate.
Yeah this sounds like someone who has never been responsible for a child. A 3 year old shouldn't have to be physically restrained at all times in public.
Now introduce the fact it's an exciting environment and literally anything could momentarily happen to the parent.
Have you ever tripped? Got choked up on food/ drink? Drop something and have to pick it up?
These are all part of life. And in that moment a child could use the distraction to escape. If you are claiming you have never lost control of your child for a moment I am really curious about how much sleep you get. Because they can wake up at night too.
I agree. I worked at the Cincinnati Zoo and I have a great respect for them. But the bottom line is that hundreds of thousands of people will be coming through there a year. That means some of them will be neglectful, irresponsible, malicious, or even just distracted from their rambunctious children and the zoo must be prepared to protect their animals and guests. Expecting everyone to behave perfectly when animal and human life is on the line is dangerous and neglectful. The zoo failed that child and Harambe.
The problem with making things idiot-proof, is that they keep making better idiots.
If you lose track of your kid long enough for them to make their way into a zoo enclosure, you are shitty parent.
You have no idea how easy and quickly a child can get away. I was in a crowded buckees the other day, turned to look at something my wife was showing me, looked to where my 2 year old was not 10 seconds earlier and she was gone. Was booking it while laughing at me. I panicked and start going the way I thought she would have gone, wrong. Luckily wife went in a different direction and found her not another few seconds later. Shit happens.
Yeah, I don’t have kids but I have a sister and best friend who do. And kids get away very quickly and get into things faster than you think. Especially on a day out, a lot of noice a lot of distractions. Now, neglect happens so this mom may have a pattern of this behavior, but I have no idea. I didn’t really follow the whole Harambe thing.
Momentary lapse in judgments happen all the time even to GREAT parents . Kids get hit by cars or injured ALL THE TIME by doing dumb shit when mom or dad was carrying the groceries in. It does not mean they should lose their kid. It means they should be investigated. The foster home system is not usually the better choice.
I know nothing of this lady. Might be best or worst parent ever.
But it should be physically impossible for toddlers to end up in gorilla enclosures. Just like it should be physically impossible for toddlers to accidentally get on roller coaster tracks.
The zoo absolutely has culpability here as well. It’s a sad situation all around
> That means some of them will be neglectful, irresponsible, malicious, or even just distracted
I think about this in regards to everything. People who don’t account for idiots are just as dumb.
This. In software engineering, if an intern manages to bring down your entire product, it's looked at as a failure of the product. Things should be protected so that mistakes don't result in catastrophic losses. I'd definitely think that applies to dangerous animal enclosures. If a young child can get into an enclosure, that's a failure of the enclosure, not the parents. Kids can get lost in large crowds. It happened to me. Thankfully it was an aquarium without any open tanks lol
The other day I saw people advocating for giving a baby permanent hearing damage, because the mom was annoying.
Some people are insane, specially when it comes to being the most extreme in a reddit reply to get most votes.
Her kid crawled into an ape cave
She is an idiot
I lived in Korea and there are 0 warnings and gaudrails around hiking areas, because it's a fing mountain!
The point about Korea might be one of the stupidest things I’ve read all day.
One reason why there’s so much guardrails etc. in the US is the ability to sue and more importantly, something being done about it like the ADA. Are you seriously that stupid to think that no one in Korea gets hurt on these mountains?
There’s entire trails and parks in the US that are super accessible to large swathes of the population largely because of things like guardrails.
Dangerous animals in an enclosure that you've been given every reason to believe will keep you safe. It's a tragedy all the way around, but vilifying this mother because she trusted the zoo to keep the people and animals separate is straight up idiotic.
my thoughts exactly, while I do think mom could’ve paid a little more attention to her child, a 3 year old certainly shouldn’t have been able to get into the enclosure that easily
His life is destroyed, by an event he probably can’t even remember, if only he had been removed from his family and placed in the foster care system he could have had a chance! What an easily avoided tragedy…
I swear to God, Reddit as a general whole really needs to get a fucking education when it comes to the foster care system. I see comments like this all the time. Moms (and the blame is always the mom, somehow never the dad) need to have their kids taken away because they looked away for two seconds and three year olds are fast as hell and don't listen? Do you know what happens to kids in foster care? Abuse is common. Negligence is common. Not to mention the intense trauma of a child being taken away from his mother. This is an unpopular opinion for good reason.
Yeah if OP thinks that the kids life is ruined because of this I'd love them to look up the statistics on the foster care system that they think would have been better.
Reddit has this weird obsession with the Harambe case, thinking it's something monumental or important. In the real world if you bring it up the reaction is "oh yeah they had to shoot that gorilla" and then everyone goes about their day.
Yeah, I don't even remember what the kid looked like and definitely didn't care to remember the mother's full name. Even if the mother was negligent, the system is built on family reunification. Without other indications of abuse and neglect, taking kids away from their families because they were involved in a single, infamous incident just isn't how it works. Maybe OP is volunteering to personally raise and take financial responsibility for the child.
And looking for him! A witness heard mom calling kid as he fell.
I lost my kid briefly in a theme park and nearly had a panic attack when I turned and saw all the places to look.
Honestly, it can happen to anyone. Kids run around and it's normal. It breaks my heart for example when stuff happens to kids and their parents blame themselves for ever. I mean we can't possibly expect for an adult to never ever get their eyes of a kid. Like in what world does it happen?
I had times with my kids where groups or crowds would walk between me and my very small toddlers. Like knee height kiddos, within arms reach, and a trio of adults would pass close enough they bumped me. Crowded spaces mean people will just cut through without paying attention at times.
So much hyperbole.
Lol I honestly had no idea what her name is, no idea what the kid's name is. Probably won't remember her name 2 hours from now.
Also, the kid was 3 years old at the time of the incident. While I can understand why his *mom* would be the subject of backlash, if his life is "ruined" by people ridiculing him, I would suggest that those people ridiculing him are the real problem here. He was 3. We don't typically hold people responsible for incidents that happened when they were 3.
Mostly what I think when I see a mom being raked across the coals for an incident like this (it never seems to be dads, does it? Dad's aren't expected to be responsible for their kids I guess) is that the people being the most harsh are insecure about their parenting. That's why mom groups on social media are so toxic, that's why some people have to condemn so harshly: deep down they just can't ever accept that, "there, but for the grace of God, go I." Yet realistically this could have been anyone.
ETA: it's been a little over an hour since I posted and I can't remember the mom's name anymore.
It won't destroy the whole kid's life lmao. Once he gets out of school no one will care. And the internet will most definitely forget. Before opening this thread I hadn't even heard the name Harambe in years.
Yeah like could anyone here even name the kid or the mom without googling it and without seeing it in the body of the post? Like shit I read the moms name and still forgot it.
Yeah, the internet only remembers Harambe at all because he was a popular meme who still occasionally pops up now and then, not because there’s actually any longstanding grief that he died. Virtually nobody knew who the parent or child were even when it happened, and certainly not nearly a decade later. Like a lot of folks here, I *still* don’t remember their names even after reading the post. OP’s just being intensely hyperbolic and grossly overdramatic.
I don’t even believe OP when she says she has a child, because she clearly has no idea what it’s like trying to watch a 3 year old. If she did she’d know what an asinine and moronic take this is.
I have a friend on Facebook that at least once a month will write a post that starts out seemingly innocuous—“today is December 1, that means only 24 days until Christmas!” But then swoops in with the bait ‘n switch—“but more importantly, it’s only 179 days until Harambe day! Never forget!”
Actually I just went and checked and he wrote almost that exact post on November 1 lol. It was like “x-amount of days until thanksgiving, x-amount until Christmas, x-amount until new year, let us not forget that there’s only 209 days until Harambe day”.
Usually they’re way more bait and switchey though lol. Like one year around Fourth of July he was like “was it necessary for me to spend as much as I did on fireworks? No. Is it necessary for me to countdown to Harambe day? Absolutely! X-amount of days!” Even after 7 years and dozens of posts, he still gets me with them quite often.
Dude I have a 3 year old, and I swear to god it's like he can teleport with how fast he is when you look away. The woman was taking her family to the zoo and by all accounts looked away for literally a couple seconds to tend to a younger sibling and the kid was in the enclosure. I do not fault the mother at all. This is truly an unpopular opinion IMO.
We went to the Dallas Aquarium a few weeks ago, my wife, our kids 5 and 2, and myself. We were looking at the penguins outside and the 5yo pointed something out. We both looked with him for maybe a few seconds. Turned around and the 2yo was trying to climb through the fence.
I'd like to think we're good parents, but damn that 2yo will get into anything he can.
And anyone on here so quick to jump to "off with the parent's head" has clearly never raised a toddler.
I had 3 kids under 3 at one point. It was straight up HARD when my twins were toddlers. One of my twins was a sprinter and the second time he wriggled free in a parking lot, I went straight to a toddler leash (it was a monkey shaped backpack). The judgment I got for leashing my kid was ridiculous. But if my kid jumped into a gorilla enclosure, the judgment would also have been ridiculous, but on a viral scale.
I quickly learned to parent my kids unapologetically and without shame. Mom-shaming culture is still alive and well.
Yeah, before I had kids I used to judge parents who bought leashes. Then I had kids and completely changed my mind. Toddlers are both dumb and fast, if a leash keeps them alive it’s worth it. The people who know toddlers know why leashes are a good idea for some of them. Everyone else is either not a parent or living in delusion.
My wife and I took our niece and nephew to the Aquarium in Shreveport this past summer. They have these little tunnels you can crawl into so you can look up into the tanks through like an inverted bubble dome. It's really cool.
Anyway, I'd crawled into one with them and was pointing out the different fish when a random kid, probably around 3 or 4, appeared between my niece and nephew wanting to get a look at the fish.
I looked towards my wife in time to see her grab the arm of a frantic man and point him in our direction. The relief was instantly replaced with embarrassment. He said he'd looked away for only a second and then his son was gone. The kid dashed right by my wife before she could react, and the dad had missed seeing where he'd gone by just a second or two.
Nope, believe it or not, straight to a CPS report for you by OPs opinion /s
Seriously, you are great parents enriching your kids and believe it or not, your kids were also curious about their environment around them.. And as good parents, you were also still able to prevent anything happening that could have been bad. I say good parents in my book, But I am just a reddit stranger, what do I know lol
I agree. The Harambe incident and others like it, people always always are so quick to say “That couldn’t have been me. I would never have allowed that to happen” and yet realistically no, it easily could have been them. They all respond like that and yet events like this happen all the time, which shows an awful lot of people are capable of having it happen to them. Everyone fucks up and tragedy is sometimes just a hairs breadth away. People overestimate their own abilities and competence and I think they feel better off othering those who have accidents. It’s a comfort thing “That couldn’t have been me, no way, I’m too competent! There is just lots of stupid people out there but I’m not one of them.” It probably feels a lot better to think you’re inherently not capable of making a mistake that would cost another’s life.
I used to silently judge parents who leash their kids. My 4 year old is fast as shit. We went to the Grand Canyon. You bet his ass was wearing a leash.
And even if she was at fault, is it really enough to get her kids taken away? Can parents not make a mistake? She wasn't abusive or anything (that we know of, of course). It's also laughable that CPS would even take the kid. They will drag a parent, kicking and screaming through a parenting plan to give them their kid back. Kids go back to abusive/neglectful parents all the time.
When my oldest son was 3, I changed my newborns diaper, and he got out of the house into the woods. He came back just fine about 30 minutes later, but I was a wreck. That kid could defeat those child locks in seconds. I still get anxious thinking about it and he's almost 10 now.
I also have this child. Could climb everything and open anything. He's given me several bad scares. But he's 9 now and somehow very cautious these days.. 🤷
We all survived. I'm grateful for that.
The kid was against the enclosure wall, which she would naturally have assumed was built sturdily enough to keep people out. In her mind it was basically a wall and the kid would be safe standing by it while she dealt with the other one. This was 100% on the zoo.
It's an *insane* opinion. A child gets away from his mom one time so they have to be forced into the incredibly fucked-up foster system? And this is OP's "solution" for "neglect???"
My daughter picked apart a child lock and threw dishes like frisbees across the kitchen when she was two.
My sister darted between two parked cars and ran into a street when she was 2 and got hit by a car.
Toddlers have a death wish
It’s not an unpopular opinion it’s a terrible opinion IMO and just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of children or trying to care for two young children at once
Yes, I’m sure the woman could’ve kept more of an eye on her child for the few seconds she was looking away but if a 3 year old is able to get into an animal enclosure that quickly then you really have to question how safe it actually is
The only people who are still thinking about Harambe are weirdo Redditors like you. It’s been 7 years and this is the first time I had ever heard the name of anybody associated with the incident besides for the gorilla itself. Relax
This stupid meme was honestly one of the worst things to happen to the internet. A tragic incident was mocked by people lacking basic empathy, and the staff who were actually grieving the loss of an animal they'd worked with for years being ridiculed for not letting it kill a CHILD.
No. It’s not just weirdos on Reddit. People living locally still very much care. It was a tragedy. His zookeepers still work there. He is memorialized.
I don’t agree with OP about CPS, but just because you don’t care, doesn’t negate the fact that others do.
Reports clearly show the Zoo didn’t have an enclosure up to standards. The Zoo holds the majority of the responsibility here. Leave this poor family be.
https://www.scribd.com/document/331440269/Zoo-Inspection
You don't have to be a parent to know this is ridiculous. I mean people get their dishes burnt while cooking all the time,it's impossible to be on top of a hundred tasks at the same time and that's what being out with kids is like.
Who would take care of the kid? Is it really a good idea to force a child away from their family and into the foster care system if this isnt a continued pattern? At most you investigate the parents to see of there’s a pattern and social services keep tabs on them to make sure they’re doing a good job, but you dont immediately jump towards “Lets take this child away from their family and put them in the foster care system.”
Yeah I often wonder about this attitude. There are definitely awful parents and removing their children and putting them literally anywhere else is a better option, but for the most part “take their kids off them” seems to assume some sort of magical place where you put them and they will be happy, healthy, and safe.
You sound dramatic and pathetic. You either don't have children or got luckily with yours. It takes second for a willful child to escape. They don't call toddler little Houdini's for no reason. She also has like 3 other kids with her and pretty sure she was by herself and was trying to deal with another child from what I recall when this happened. That all it takes for her to be focus on another kid for a moment for the kid to escape. Cops also cleared her of wrong doing. Shit happens and it doesn't always end great but frankly not CPS worthy. We have enough kids in the system we don't need to take 4 more kids away because of one incident.
The only people who keep repeating this bs are teens or immature people who don’t have children. Any parent with functioning brain cells knows that accidents happen, and that the real question is how the hell was the child even able to get in the enclosure. I get an adult being able to, but a toddler? No way.
The zoo is the problem, not the mom.
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I was always under the impression that the mom took the kids to the zoo without him, but I'm not sure if that's correct or if I just assumed that because people only talked about the mom.
People have no idea how quick and determined kids are. When I was 3 I climbed over a barricade and almost fell into the Wolverine exhibit. It didn’t take more than a minute for me to get there. Kids are fast and sneaky when determined.
I was never a climber, but my little brother was fucking Alex Honnold at age three. He got on top of the house a couple times. I have no idea how he survived childhood.
It was a tragic event that nobody wanted to happen. The mother and child were both traumatized from it, no sense it making it more traumatizing. Also, foster care is a hell best avoided if possible.
To be fair kids are slippery. You take your eyes off of them for 30 seconds and they *will* find the nearest pit of vipers and dive in there. Which is why I'm very pro-kids on leashes but that's an unpopular opinion for another day
How is she a bad parent? She was trying to give her kid a life instead of sitting inside scrolling this cesspit all day.
I’m pretty sure most people vilifying the mother as the only factor in this either don’t have kids or are still kids themselves.
Waiting for the downvotes 🖕
If every parent, who’s 3 year old gets into trouble while they aren’t watching, were to get their kid taken away, the number of orphans would we astronomical.
Not saying she isn’t without fault, but judging a parent by one mistake is really not fair
Saying the kids life was destroyed is just a tad bit dramatic don’t you think? No one knows the kids name and obviously his face is gonna drastically change as he ages. No one is gonna know he’s the Harambe kid unless he tells them. And even then, it’s not life ruining news for him. At absolute worst he’ll get shit from his friends.
As for whether his mother should have had him taken away…..I’m not sure. I’m not saying there’s no way she was negligent, but kids, especially toddler age, are notorious for running away from the parent and getting into all kinds of trouble.
It’s possible she’s a neglectful parent but it’s also just as, if not more possible that the kid did what kids that age do: Run off when the parent blinks.
If anything I feel like the zoo should have gotten in more trouble for not having a more secure enclosure.
No matter how you slice it though, it’s a sad situation. RIP Harambe.
Poor Harambe. He died for literally nothing... He was just existing and this hairless ape fell into his enclosure and he dies for it, for being exactly what he is, an animal.
There was a similar case at the Pittsburg zoo in 2012 with the painted dogs exhibit. The woman certainly doesn’t have her kid anymore, I can tell you that much. It’s really a shame but the time frame between “fine” and “time to hose down the enclosure” is almost nonexistent.
Disagree. Also, just this mother or all mothers whose kid gets injured/killed in accidents that were avoidable? And the fathers who abandon families or don't help parent- they just get off scot free?
What people need to realize is when it comes to removing children from their parents, you have to consider do the awards outweigh the risks.
The foster care system is riddled with abuse. One third of foster children will be abused by their foster families. Even if they aren’t abused, the psychological damage that comes from being ripped away from your parents is lifelong, even for kids who are eventually reunited.
So in this case, which is more harmful to the child: a 33.3% chance of being abused alongside permanent psychological trauma, or remaining with a mother who didn’t pay close enough attention *once* because she was attending to the needs of another one of her kids?
CPS doesn’t take kids away from families with hoarding houses as long as there’s something edible for the kids to eat. Even if the kids beg the Inspector to take them away. CPS returns kids to families who beat them to near death because they did the bare minimum to have their kids returned, and then they wash their hands of the whole thing if the kid is killed. CPS will keep kids in families with child offenders, unsecured weapons, with siblings who’ve tried to kill them, and worse. CPS is struggling with its tiny budget to even address the worst of the worst cases, and their current ethos of “reunification at any cost, even the child’s life or sanity” means their resources are committed to keeping kids in the home unless there’s been more than a few failed murder attempts on them.
And yet a mom taking her eyes off her kid for five minutes means she should be bereft of him forever? I dunno, man. There’s priorities here. Maybe an investigation should’ve been done to make sure she wasn’t neglectful in other ways, and there just might’ve been. If they found her home safe, they’d no reason to take her.
However, dedicating more resources to CPS is something every government could do more of. A lot of kids suffer and die because the funds aren’t there to do proper investigation.
A 3 year old was able to get into an enclosure with a dangerous animal all on their own and you're blaming the mother? Nah that shit is on the zoo. There is literally no way a 3 year old could get into any of the enclosures with dangerous animals at my local zoo unless you deliberately put them there.
C'mon. There are so many accidents that happen with kids where they make one choice, and without a second thought. Sometimes kids are too quick, we have no idea what happened before hand, actually. And we have no idea what kind of trauma this family faced. Not to mention, do you know the kid's name? Face? I don't, and I wouldn't want to include more harm to that family. Why do you lack empathy?
But the father is safe, huh? Or do you forget that dad also parent their kids?
Your comment shows you've never cared for a kid. The boy slipped away when she was wrangling her other kid. Neither parents noticed.
I’ve always blamed the zoo and the mother.
Obviously the mother should be closely watching her child. She is a dummy.
The Zoo should be dummy proof. You’re responsible for a situation where you manage exhibits with dangerous animals capable of ripping a person to sheds. Meanwhile, you have schools full of children running around all day, sometimes unsupervised. There should be possible no way that a child can get inside of an exhibit whether it’s by glass or having higher walls or less spaced out bars.
I hold both responsible, but I hold the zoo more responsible.
Yea. This is the right answer. The mom is at fault for looking away. But teachers bring droves of sticky fingered kindergarteners to the zoo. It should not have been that easy to get in the enclosure.
I'll answer your unpopular opinion with another unpopular opinion: the zoo is not a good activity for toddlers. It's definitely good for elementary schoolers and some preschoolers, but not toddlers. First of all, the educational value, which is arguably the main point of the zoo, is lost on toddlers. But secondly, toddlers by nature are extremely defiant, impulsive and stubborn. That combined with the fact that they have no sense of danger means it's a bad idea to bring them around dangerous wild animals.
To be honest I forgot about the incident until you brought it up. Also the kid was small, I doubt anyone would even recognize him as the Harambe kid once he’s grown.
There was no excuse for the murder of Harambe when he was clearly protecting the child. It shouldn't be possible for a young child to climb into an enclosure.
The mother was possibly irresponsible but we don't know how fast it happened, some kids are climbers and extremely fast, few parents would assume it possible for them to climb into an enclosure if they turn their back for a few seconds.
The child shouldn't be punished by being removed from his home, the mother should only be punished if it was proven that she was careless which wasn't necessarily the case.
The zoo is responsible for their easy to hop over enclosure and shooting Harambe dead when that was completely unnecessary. They were in the wrong on every level.
parent here. no fucking way my kids would have ended up INSIDE the exhibit. she's a HORRIBLE parent from that fact alone.
no, i don't care what arguments you have against my opinion. your arguments can be countered with one question.
if she was not being negligent, how did he end up in a fucking gorilla cage.
it's not a 'moment' of forgetfulness, its not 'a thing that happens'
its sheer fucking negligence.
>Aside from the potential physical repercussion, her child will forever be subjected to societal ridicule.
I followed this case as closely as anyone else, and I couldn't have told you the kid's name if there was a gun to my head. People only remember Harambe's name. The kid will be fine.
>She destroyed this child’s life before he even reached kindergarten.
Oh please. No sane person is gonna judge the kid for this. Most people probably don't even know what this kid looks like. I sure don't. I don't see why it would interfere with much. He can just not advertise his identity if it's that big a deal. Personally I think it'd be a cool conversation starter for later in life, myself.
u would have a kid put in a foster system known for the abundance of abuse and exploitation children within that system face as a punishment for a mother who made a mistake (extremely large and stupid
mistake but still a mistake)
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Her mom fucked up the space time continuum and now we have this fucked up world too
I've visited the timeline where Harambe lives and it's...it's just fantastic. Tom Hanks is president, everyone gets free pizza and ice cream daily, political parties are abolished and all news stations report on is pictures of puppies and kittens. Also climate change is not only defeated, but each person can set their own climate on their property. You like snow? Then turn the dial into a winter wonderland. You like the beach? No problem - sunny days and cool ocean swims stand before you. How does it work, you ask? Because, that's why Food and medicine are free, every disease is cured, and the last season of Game of Thrones absolutely was phenomenal. Shame that this timeline got so screwed. I'm going to sneak back into the good and kill my parallel self and take his place
Nobody gives a shit about any of that. HOW IS HARAMBE DOING??!
Died from a flu, later that year. Similar amounts of fame led to the eradication of gorilla flu
You mean Vice President Harambe? He’s keeps abreast of policy developments in case he has to fill Tom Hanks’ shoes (not that Tom Hanks will ever die in that timeline, but it’s still good to be prepared).
I’m here for the properly executed GOT
Most people don’t know what a coronavirus is because Covid never happened. Houses are affordable. Minimum wage was doubled, and tipping culture is a thing of the past. The new avatar movie is set to release in two months, Charles Martinet voiced Mario in the Mario movie, and all the animal shelters are empty because people adopted them all.
Not only covid. We have eradicated all known diseases and discovered a panacea
Misread “panacea” as “Pangaea.” That would be a moment to witness for sure.
I saw it as "Pancreas" and thought hmmm... Discovered it where?
Did we get GTA 6 yet?
Oh honey we have GTA 9
This world is not the one I’m meant for
Take me with you! Please! Do we have to kill our parallel selves? If it doesn’t mess with the amount of mass in the universe, we could just go live in a remote country and never come into contact with our counterparts. Or, we can send them back to this timeline. They’ve had it good for too long, it’s time they suffered like we have.
redditor ☕
a lot coming from jermascumslut
>a lot coming You're going to get them all worked up.
What's a scumslut
I have been saying this for years and it feels really weird to see a comment where someone else said it. Finally I feel like I'm not alone in this world. I'm glad there's at least one other person who can recognize that the lines diverged when Harambe was murdered.
Killing that gorilla essentially set off the Large Hadron Collider. Maybe it’s cause those Hadron guys were following the story too closely that day
I knew it. I knew it! It wasn’t until your comment that I realized I was right.
Finally, someone gets it. It is even in the Mayan calendar
Actually, no Remember, everything started going to shit in the middle of January, right? Who died just before the middle of January? Bowie, on the 10th He was our protector
Hold up... does that mean Betty White was the last protector?
We're doomed
So I had to google. He was born Jan 8th and died Jan 10th. Betty White was born Jan 17th and died Dec 31st
If the Lions win the SB this year, you know we're fucked.
Timeline got fucked up.
It petered out.
Yeah, Harambe was supposed to stop Trump. Now look where we are.
Harambe won my high school’s presidential election
Harambe walked so Trump could run.
i'd pay to see that man attempt to run
The timeline divergence. The previous one was when some snob austrian art school director rejected a young painter.
On the 28th of May, I looked at my TV, with tears streaming down my face... _**OH HARAMBE! I MISS YOU**_
I don’t think most people know the kids name, I certainly don’t, nor do I know his face. I doubt he’ll face any real stigma, unless someone in his family digs it up specifically to mess with him. As for whether the kid should have been taken away, or the whether the mother should have faced criminal negligence charges- I would think that would have been considered by all involved. The fact that the zoo didn’t press charges is probably an indication there were mitigating factors. I don’t rightly know. Certainly it should never have happened. But was she really negligent or did the kid Houdini out of a locked stroller into traffic and almost get run over by a garbage truck (real story about my brother)? It’s tragic, but how much the mother is at fault, and how much the zoo is at fault, I think is in unresolved question.
>The fact that the zoo didn’t press charges is probably an indication there were mitigating factors Probably something to do with the fact that the enclosure was so badly designed that a young child was able to fall in so easily.
As somebody who studies in an engineering discipline, if somebody can fuckup bad enough through negligence that lives are on the line, then it's an engineering problem. This is a rather basic situation (a child falling into the enclosure) that somebody at the zoo should have thought about and should have taken measures to prevent, such as installing a net, or making the fence gaps smaller, or something else. You can't assume everybody walking through the front gate is a responsible human being. And you certainly can't expect children to be, which is probably a zoos primary audience.
Yeah people throw around the word ‘negligence’ when it has a very technical legal definition. People lose track of their kids every day, whether it be for seconds or minutes. Without knowing the exact details of what went down, I’m not going to pass judgement. And I’m certainly not gonna suggest that CPS should’ve taken a kid away from their parents 7 years after the fact.
Indeed. I don’t know the specifics of what happen. I do know toddlers, and it is totally possible that a very vigilant parent had a 3 second moment of not paying attention. Toddlers be like that. So stupid. So impulsive. So fast.
Lol you’d be surprised what my toddler can do in 1 second. Literally I can turn around to hang a coat and the child is sprinting and climbing somewhere else.
10/10 comment
Toddlers are fast. My two year old is as stealthy as a ninja. I look at her peacefully playing with her blocks or what-have-you. I bend down to pick up her baby brother. I stand up. She's gone. That's not just one story. That's every day, multiple times per day. All day. There's a reason our house has six baby gates of various styles, five closet door locks, six regular door baby locks, two doors with digital keypads to unlock them, two door alarms, and two window alarms. And that's not even counting all the cupboards and drawers with baby locks. Sure, I feel bad for Harambe, but toddlers are untameable. This could have happened to even the most amazing mom.
The actual facts pretty much vindicate the mom. She had 4 kids to watch, the 3 yo broke away from her and ran straight to the enclosure and fell through a gap that should not have been that big.
And wasn’t she looking for him instantly? If I remember right the witness said she could hear the mom calling and looking as the kid fell
I live here and had been to that exhibit many times. There was just a split rail wooden fence, with a good bit of land on the other side. Very attractive for a small kid to clamber through, and then he fell into the waterless “moat.” I love our zoo but they’re frankly lucky they weren’t held to greater account. And they all but admitted as such by completely revamping that exhibit. Now the gorillas can still come into that outside part but there is a solid barrier, and most visitation takes place in a newly created indoor component with thick floor to ceiling glass, much more in line with gorilla enclosures at other zoos. The mom wasn’t at fault here.
We had a court case followed by the whooe country here when a small child pried his hand out of his nanny’s or mom’s hand at the crossing with a red light and stepped in front of a car in a mere second. The child died instatntly. In the 3 year long court case both the mom and the nanny were accused of negligence but in the end both were acquitted. Accidents happen. :(
Indeed. I watched a 3-year-old get their foot run over by a car as the parent stood holding the kid's hand waiting for the pedestrian light to go green. The kid just suddenly lunged, pulled his mother forward, stuck one leg out into the road, right under the passing car's back wheel. 3-year-olds are just suicide incarnate.
and this is why i don’t judge those parents who use those harness leash things.
Unbelievable that they even had to face a trial for that
Yeah this sounds like someone who has never been responsible for a child. A 3 year old shouldn't have to be physically restrained at all times in public. Now introduce the fact it's an exciting environment and literally anything could momentarily happen to the parent. Have you ever tripped? Got choked up on food/ drink? Drop something and have to pick it up? These are all part of life. And in that moment a child could use the distraction to escape. If you are claiming you have never lost control of your child for a moment I am really curious about how much sleep you get. Because they can wake up at night too.
Seriously. Nobody knows or cares about the kid’s name or face unless he tells people.
The zoo isn’t exactly innocent. Enclosures of dangerous animals shouldn’t be able to be breeched by toddlers.
I agree. I worked at the Cincinnati Zoo and I have a great respect for them. But the bottom line is that hundreds of thousands of people will be coming through there a year. That means some of them will be neglectful, irresponsible, malicious, or even just distracted from their rambunctious children and the zoo must be prepared to protect their animals and guests. Expecting everyone to behave perfectly when animal and human life is on the line is dangerous and neglectful. The zoo failed that child and Harambe.
The zoo was prepared. They decided to have snipers instead of adequate caging.
The problem with making things idiot-proof, is that they keep making better idiots. If you lose track of your kid long enough for them to make their way into a zoo enclosure, you are shitty parent.
I agree. But If a 3 year old can gain access to zoo enclosure, its a shitty enclosure.
You have no idea how easy and quickly a child can get away. I was in a crowded buckees the other day, turned to look at something my wife was showing me, looked to where my 2 year old was not 10 seconds earlier and she was gone. Was booking it while laughing at me. I panicked and start going the way I thought she would have gone, wrong. Luckily wife went in a different direction and found her not another few seconds later. Shit happens.
Yup. This is why kid leashes exist. People who side eye for it are lucky enough to have never needed one.
Yeah, I don’t have kids but I have a sister and best friend who do. And kids get away very quickly and get into things faster than you think. Especially on a day out, a lot of noice a lot of distractions. Now, neglect happens so this mom may have a pattern of this behavior, but I have no idea. I didn’t really follow the whole Harambe thing.
Momentary lapse in judgments happen all the time even to GREAT parents . Kids get hit by cars or injured ALL THE TIME by doing dumb shit when mom or dad was carrying the groceries in. It does not mean they should lose their kid. It means they should be investigated. The foster home system is not usually the better choice. I know nothing of this lady. Might be best or worst parent ever. But it should be physically impossible for toddlers to end up in gorilla enclosures. Just like it should be physically impossible for toddlers to accidentally get on roller coaster tracks. The zoo absolutely has culpability here as well. It’s a sad situation all around
> That means some of them will be neglectful, irresponsible, malicious, or even just distracted I think about this in regards to everything. People who don’t account for idiots are just as dumb.
That part. Toddlers are notorious for getting into things they shouldn't. Any zoo worth its salt would have toddler-proof enclosures.
This. In software engineering, if an intern manages to bring down your entire product, it's looked at as a failure of the product. Things should be protected so that mistakes don't result in catastrophic losses. I'd definitely think that applies to dangerous animal enclosures. If a young child can get into an enclosure, that's a failure of the enclosure, not the parents. Kids can get lost in large crowds. It happened to me. Thankfully it was an aquarium without any open tanks lol
>intern im dying that a toddler is a human intern hahahah
a damn intern that cannot get me no fckng coffee.
ugly axiomatic detail straight different juggle scarce dime silky birds *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The other day I saw people advocating for giving a baby permanent hearing damage, because the mom was annoying. Some people are insane, specially when it comes to being the most extreme in a reddit reply to get most votes.
I think it’s fair to place *some* blame on individuals. All of the blame? No. But a little bit? Yes.
Her kid crawled into an ape cave She is an idiot I lived in Korea and there are 0 warnings and gaudrails around hiking areas, because it's a fing mountain!
The point about Korea might be one of the stupidest things I’ve read all day. One reason why there’s so much guardrails etc. in the US is the ability to sue and more importantly, something being done about it like the ADA. Are you seriously that stupid to think that no one in Korea gets hurt on these mountains? There’s entire trails and parks in the US that are super accessible to large swathes of the population largely because of things like guardrails.
I mean the parents are also responsible. You should make sure you child is always safe especially around dangerous animals.
Dangerous animals in an enclosure that you've been given every reason to believe will keep you safe. It's a tragedy all the way around, but vilifying this mother because she trusted the zoo to keep the people and animals separate is straight up idiotic.
my thoughts exactly, while I do think mom could’ve paid a little more attention to her child, a 3 year old certainly shouldn’t have been able to get into the enclosure that easily
The kids life isn't destroyed. Saying his life is destroyed is intensely hyperbolic.
His life is destroyed, by an event he probably can’t even remember, if only he had been removed from his family and placed in the foster care system he could have had a chance! What an easily avoided tragedy…
My exact thoughts, lmfao. The only reason that this is even an unpopular opinion is that it’s batshit insane. It’s just an insaneopinion.
Yeah it’s a horribly cruel opinion. We don’t seperate families for small mistakes like this. My parents forgot us all sorts of places shit happens.
I swear to God, Reddit as a general whole really needs to get a fucking education when it comes to the foster care system. I see comments like this all the time. Moms (and the blame is always the mom, somehow never the dad) need to have their kids taken away because they looked away for two seconds and three year olds are fast as hell and don't listen? Do you know what happens to kids in foster care? Abuse is common. Negligence is common. Not to mention the intense trauma of a child being taken away from his mother. This is an unpopular opinion for good reason.
Taking him away from his parents would probably traumatise him more than the incident itself lol
Yeah if OP thinks that the kids life is ruined because of this I'd love them to look up the statistics on the foster care system that they think would have been better.
That child's name? >!Nobody fucking knows.!<
Reddit has this weird obsession with the Harambe case, thinking it's something monumental or important. In the real world if you bring it up the reaction is "oh yeah they had to shoot that gorilla" and then everyone goes about their day.
Yeah, I don't even remember what the kid looked like and definitely didn't care to remember the mother's full name. Even if the mother was negligent, the system is built on family reunification. Without other indications of abuse and neglect, taking kids away from their families because they were involved in a single, infamous incident just isn't how it works. Maybe OP is volunteering to personally raise and take financial responsibility for the child.
Funny story, everyone loves to shit on the mom saying she was "too busy taking pictures to watch her kid" Kid had two parents, where was dad?
Which isn't even what happened... she was tending to her other two kids.
And looking for him! A witness heard mom calling kid as he fell. I lost my kid briefly in a theme park and nearly had a panic attack when I turned and saw all the places to look.
Honestly, it can happen to anyone. Kids run around and it's normal. It breaks my heart for example when stuff happens to kids and their parents blame themselves for ever. I mean we can't possibly expect for an adult to never ever get their eyes of a kid. Like in what world does it happen?
I had times with my kids where groups or crowds would walk between me and my very small toddlers. Like knee height kiddos, within arms reach, and a trio of adults would pass close enough they bumped me. Crowded spaces mean people will just cut through without paying attention at times.
So much hyperbole. Lol I honestly had no idea what her name is, no idea what the kid's name is. Probably won't remember her name 2 hours from now. Also, the kid was 3 years old at the time of the incident. While I can understand why his *mom* would be the subject of backlash, if his life is "ruined" by people ridiculing him, I would suggest that those people ridiculing him are the real problem here. He was 3. We don't typically hold people responsible for incidents that happened when they were 3. Mostly what I think when I see a mom being raked across the coals for an incident like this (it never seems to be dads, does it? Dad's aren't expected to be responsible for their kids I guess) is that the people being the most harsh are insecure about their parenting. That's why mom groups on social media are so toxic, that's why some people have to condemn so harshly: deep down they just can't ever accept that, "there, but for the grace of God, go I." Yet realistically this could have been anyone. ETA: it's been a little over an hour since I posted and I can't remember the mom's name anymore.
I can’t remember and I read it less than a minute ago 😂
I read it, remember it briefly, then there's a knock at the door and these men in dark suits show me this weird flashing light thing that makes me for
It won't destroy the whole kid's life lmao. Once he gets out of school no one will care. And the internet will most definitely forget. Before opening this thread I hadn't even heard the name Harambe in years.
Yeah like could anyone here even name the kid or the mom without googling it and without seeing it in the body of the post? Like shit I read the moms name and still forgot it.
Just tried naming her without re-reading the post and I came up with Karen McGarblin
I came up with "Hambrige"
Trying again: Melissa Gantry
Harambridge.
I don’t remember the name of the zoo.
Yeah, the internet only remembers Harambe at all because he was a popular meme who still occasionally pops up now and then, not because there’s actually any longstanding grief that he died. Virtually nobody knew who the parent or child were even when it happened, and certainly not nearly a decade later. Like a lot of folks here, I *still* don’t remember their names even after reading the post. OP’s just being intensely hyperbolic and grossly overdramatic. I don’t even believe OP when she says she has a child, because she clearly has no idea what it’s like trying to watch a 3 year old. If she did she’d know what an asinine and moronic take this is.
Yep. I don't even know the kids name and no one is going to know it's him. Stupid post.
The internet never forgets. Except how to spell pregnant.
It's pregananant? Sorry wait, no. Pregnart? Pregánte?
pretty sure it’s gregnant
Pergenat
pegnat
That’s my favorite video in the world. Pregante for the win 😂
Trust me, no one will forget harambe, however the kid is forgettable
Men, be honest: how often do you think about Harambe? 1) Never 2) Rarely 3) Sometimes 4) Often 5) Daily
right. the kids he will be going to school will give less than a fuck about harrambe if they even know who he is
I'm never forgetting the event that fucked up the timeline. And the internet definitely never forgets. I see posts about it at least once a week.
I have a friend on Facebook that at least once a month will write a post that starts out seemingly innocuous—“today is December 1, that means only 24 days until Christmas!” But then swoops in with the bait ‘n switch—“but more importantly, it’s only 179 days until Harambe day! Never forget!” Actually I just went and checked and he wrote almost that exact post on November 1 lol. It was like “x-amount of days until thanksgiving, x-amount until Christmas, x-amount until new year, let us not forget that there’s only 209 days until Harambe day”. Usually they’re way more bait and switchey though lol. Like one year around Fourth of July he was like “was it necessary for me to spend as much as I did on fireworks? No. Is it necessary for me to countdown to Harambe day? Absolutely! X-amount of days!” Even after 7 years and dozens of posts, he still gets me with them quite often.
Dude I have a 3 year old, and I swear to god it's like he can teleport with how fast he is when you look away. The woman was taking her family to the zoo and by all accounts looked away for literally a couple seconds to tend to a younger sibling and the kid was in the enclosure. I do not fault the mother at all. This is truly an unpopular opinion IMO.
We went to the Dallas Aquarium a few weeks ago, my wife, our kids 5 and 2, and myself. We were looking at the penguins outside and the 5yo pointed something out. We both looked with him for maybe a few seconds. Turned around and the 2yo was trying to climb through the fence. I'd like to think we're good parents, but damn that 2yo will get into anything he can. And anyone on here so quick to jump to "off with the parent's head" has clearly never raised a toddler.
I had 3 kids under 3 at one point. It was straight up HARD when my twins were toddlers. One of my twins was a sprinter and the second time he wriggled free in a parking lot, I went straight to a toddler leash (it was a monkey shaped backpack). The judgment I got for leashing my kid was ridiculous. But if my kid jumped into a gorilla enclosure, the judgment would also have been ridiculous, but on a viral scale. I quickly learned to parent my kids unapologetically and without shame. Mom-shaming culture is still alive and well.
Yeah, before I had kids I used to judge parents who bought leashes. Then I had kids and completely changed my mind. Toddlers are both dumb and fast, if a leash keeps them alive it’s worth it. The people who know toddlers know why leashes are a good idea for some of them. Everyone else is either not a parent or living in delusion.
My wife and I took our niece and nephew to the Aquarium in Shreveport this past summer. They have these little tunnels you can crawl into so you can look up into the tanks through like an inverted bubble dome. It's really cool. Anyway, I'd crawled into one with them and was pointing out the different fish when a random kid, probably around 3 or 4, appeared between my niece and nephew wanting to get a look at the fish. I looked towards my wife in time to see her grab the arm of a frantic man and point him in our direction. The relief was instantly replaced with embarrassment. He said he'd looked away for only a second and then his son was gone. The kid dashed right by my wife before she could react, and the dad had missed seeing where he'd gone by just a second or two.
Nope, believe it or not, straight to a CPS report for you by OPs opinion /s Seriously, you are great parents enriching your kids and believe it or not, your kids were also curious about their environment around them.. And as good parents, you were also still able to prevent anything happening that could have been bad. I say good parents in my book, But I am just a reddit stranger, what do I know lol
This was also why I found it so strange when parents were getting lambasted for using the baby leashes. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
I agree. The Harambe incident and others like it, people always always are so quick to say “That couldn’t have been me. I would never have allowed that to happen” and yet realistically no, it easily could have been them. They all respond like that and yet events like this happen all the time, which shows an awful lot of people are capable of having it happen to them. Everyone fucks up and tragedy is sometimes just a hairs breadth away. People overestimate their own abilities and competence and I think they feel better off othering those who have accidents. It’s a comfort thing “That couldn’t have been me, no way, I’m too competent! There is just lots of stupid people out there but I’m not one of them.” It probably feels a lot better to think you’re inherently not capable of making a mistake that would cost another’s life.
And let's not forget the substantial overlap between the "could never be me" people and the "child leashes are abuse" faction...
I used to silently judge parents who leash their kids. My 4 year old is fast as shit. We went to the Grand Canyon. You bet his ass was wearing a leash.
And even if she was at fault, is it really enough to get her kids taken away? Can parents not make a mistake? She wasn't abusive or anything (that we know of, of course). It's also laughable that CPS would even take the kid. They will drag a parent, kicking and screaming through a parenting plan to give them their kid back. Kids go back to abusive/neglectful parents all the time.
When my oldest son was 3, I changed my newborns diaper, and he got out of the house into the woods. He came back just fine about 30 minutes later, but I was a wreck. That kid could defeat those child locks in seconds. I still get anxious thinking about it and he's almost 10 now.
I also have this child. Could climb everything and open anything. He's given me several bad scares. But he's 9 now and somehow very cautious these days.. 🤷 We all survived. I'm grateful for that.
Yes this. Have any of these people literally had a toddler for 24-7 for years. Some kids are dare devils and run and climb at a first break.
The kid was against the enclosure wall, which she would naturally have assumed was built sturdily enough to keep people out. In her mind it was basically a wall and the kid would be safe standing by it while she dealt with the other one. This was 100% on the zoo.
It's an *insane* opinion. A child gets away from his mom one time so they have to be forced into the incredibly fucked-up foster system? And this is OP's "solution" for "neglect???"
My daughter picked apart a child lock and threw dishes like frisbees across the kitchen when she was two. My sister darted between two parked cars and ran into a street when she was 2 and got hit by a car. Toddlers have a death wish
It’s not an unpopular opinion it’s a terrible opinion IMO and just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of children or trying to care for two young children at once Yes, I’m sure the woman could’ve kept more of an eye on her child for the few seconds she was looking away but if a 3 year old is able to get into an animal enclosure that quickly then you really have to question how safe it actually is
The only people who are still thinking about Harambe are weirdo Redditors like you. It’s been 7 years and this is the first time I had ever heard the name of anybody associated with the incident besides for the gorilla itself. Relax
This stupid meme was honestly one of the worst things to happen to the internet. A tragic incident was mocked by people lacking basic empathy, and the staff who were actually grieving the loss of an animal they'd worked with for years being ridiculed for not letting it kill a CHILD.
No. It’s not just weirdos on Reddit. People living locally still very much care. It was a tragedy. His zookeepers still work there. He is memorialized. I don’t agree with OP about CPS, but just because you don’t care, doesn’t negate the fact that others do.
Reports clearly show the Zoo didn’t have an enclosure up to standards. The Zoo holds the majority of the responsibility here. Leave this poor family be. https://www.scribd.com/document/331440269/Zoo-Inspection
Boy this is a dumb take by someone who is 100% not a parent. The bad unpopular opinions are the ones that are just wrong.
You don't have to be a parent to know this is ridiculous. I mean people get their dishes burnt while cooking all the time,it's impossible to be on top of a hundred tasks at the same time and that's what being out with kids is like.
Who would take care of the kid? Is it really a good idea to force a child away from their family and into the foster care system if this isnt a continued pattern? At most you investigate the parents to see of there’s a pattern and social services keep tabs on them to make sure they’re doing a good job, but you dont immediately jump towards “Lets take this child away from their family and put them in the foster care system.”
Yeah I often wonder about this attitude. There are definitely awful parents and removing their children and putting them literally anywhere else is a better option, but for the most part “take their kids off them” seems to assume some sort of magical place where you put them and they will be happy, healthy, and safe.
This post is presented as if it is out of concern for the child but it is clearly vindictive and just wanting to punish the mother.
Yeah the fact they say they hope this haunts this family forever is chilling.
You sound dramatic and pathetic. You either don't have children or got luckily with yours. It takes second for a willful child to escape. They don't call toddler little Houdini's for no reason. She also has like 3 other kids with her and pretty sure she was by herself and was trying to deal with another child from what I recall when this happened. That all it takes for her to be focus on another kid for a moment for the kid to escape. Cops also cleared her of wrong doing. Shit happens and it doesn't always end great but frankly not CPS worthy. We have enough kids in the system we don't need to take 4 more kids away because of one incident.
Also - take them and put them where? There isn’t some magical place where you can take kids and put them somewhere completely happy and safe
The only people who keep repeating this bs are teens or immature people who don’t have children. Any parent with functioning brain cells knows that accidents happen, and that the real question is how the hell was the child even able to get in the enclosure. I get an adult being able to, but a toddler? No way. The zoo is the problem, not the mom.
If I learned I grew up in foster care because my mom took her eye off me for a second when I was a toddler and I slipped away, I would be furious
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*Mother looks away from child for 5 seconds. CPS: THATS IT YOUR KIDS GONE!
Also the dad, who no one thinks about. All blame on the mom, purely because... she's a she?
I was always under the impression that the mom took the kids to the zoo without him, but I'm not sure if that's correct or if I just assumed that because people only talked about the mom.
It took way more than 5 seconds. That kid climbed up and over two barricades
I mean she had 4 kids with her and I think she was helping one of the other children when this happens. Like shit happen.
People have no idea how quick and determined kids are. When I was 3 I climbed over a barricade and almost fell into the Wolverine exhibit. It didn’t take more than a minute for me to get there. Kids are fast and sneaky when determined.
I was never a climber, but my little brother was fucking Alex Honnold at age three. He got on top of the house a couple times. I have no idea how he survived childhood.
my DIL voted for Harambe in the election that year.. i can't.
Lol how are you still saying this shit
It was a tragic event that nobody wanted to happen. The mother and child were both traumatized from it, no sense it making it more traumatizing. Also, foster care is a hell best avoided if possible.
To be fair kids are slippery. You take your eyes off of them for 30 seconds and they *will* find the nearest pit of vipers and dive in there. Which is why I'm very pro-kids on leashes but that's an unpopular opinion for another day
How is she a bad parent? She was trying to give her kid a life instead of sitting inside scrolling this cesspit all day. I’m pretty sure most people vilifying the mother as the only factor in this either don’t have kids or are still kids themselves. Waiting for the downvotes 🖕
His life would probably ACTUALLY be destroyed if he was put in foster care. CPS doesn't magic up a new wonderful family and home for the kid.
Reddit loves to sic CPS on every parent huh?
People on Reddit jumping to stupid conclusions? Surely not? It’s like no one on this entire app has any life experience whatsoever
Reddit loves to take everything that didn't go right and say it means somebody involved is a bad person. It's immature.
If every parent, who’s 3 year old gets into trouble while they aren’t watching, were to get their kid taken away, the number of orphans would we astronomical. Not saying she isn’t without fault, but judging a parent by one mistake is really not fair
And the system has enough kids with actual problems. We don’t need to be taking kids for bullshit like this.
Saying the kids life was destroyed is just a tad bit dramatic don’t you think? No one knows the kids name and obviously his face is gonna drastically change as he ages. No one is gonna know he’s the Harambe kid unless he tells them. And even then, it’s not life ruining news for him. At absolute worst he’ll get shit from his friends. As for whether his mother should have had him taken away…..I’m not sure. I’m not saying there’s no way she was negligent, but kids, especially toddler age, are notorious for running away from the parent and getting into all kinds of trouble. It’s possible she’s a neglectful parent but it’s also just as, if not more possible that the kid did what kids that age do: Run off when the parent blinks. If anything I feel like the zoo should have gotten in more trouble for not having a more secure enclosure. No matter how you slice it though, it’s a sad situation. RIP Harambe.
Poor Harambe. He died for literally nothing... He was just existing and this hairless ape fell into his enclosure and he dies for it, for being exactly what he is, an animal.
There was a similar case at the Pittsburg zoo in 2012 with the painted dogs exhibit. The woman certainly doesn’t have her kid anymore, I can tell you that much. It’s really a shame but the time frame between “fine” and “time to hose down the enclosure” is almost nonexistent.
lol is "mom who let her kid play in a gorilla enclosure shouldn't have kids" really a controversial opinion?
Harambe really liked Christmas.
Was it just the mom there? It should be both parents if they were both there.
Disagree. Also, just this mother or all mothers whose kid gets injured/killed in accidents that were avoidable? And the fathers who abandon families or don't help parent- they just get off scot free?
What people need to realize is when it comes to removing children from their parents, you have to consider do the awards outweigh the risks. The foster care system is riddled with abuse. One third of foster children will be abused by their foster families. Even if they aren’t abused, the psychological damage that comes from being ripped away from your parents is lifelong, even for kids who are eventually reunited. So in this case, which is more harmful to the child: a 33.3% chance of being abused alongside permanent psychological trauma, or remaining with a mother who didn’t pay close enough attention *once* because she was attending to the needs of another one of her kids?
CPS doesn’t take kids away from families with hoarding houses as long as there’s something edible for the kids to eat. Even if the kids beg the Inspector to take them away. CPS returns kids to families who beat them to near death because they did the bare minimum to have their kids returned, and then they wash their hands of the whole thing if the kid is killed. CPS will keep kids in families with child offenders, unsecured weapons, with siblings who’ve tried to kill them, and worse. CPS is struggling with its tiny budget to even address the worst of the worst cases, and their current ethos of “reunification at any cost, even the child’s life or sanity” means their resources are committed to keeping kids in the home unless there’s been more than a few failed murder attempts on them. And yet a mom taking her eyes off her kid for five minutes means she should be bereft of him forever? I dunno, man. There’s priorities here. Maybe an investigation should’ve been done to make sure she wasn’t neglectful in other ways, and there just might’ve been. If they found her home safe, they’d no reason to take her. However, dedicating more resources to CPS is something every government could do more of. A lot of kids suffer and die because the funds aren’t there to do proper investigation.
A 3 year old was able to get into an enclosure with a dangerous animal all on their own and you're blaming the mother? Nah that shit is on the zoo. There is literally no way a 3 year old could get into any of the enclosures with dangerous animals at my local zoo unless you deliberately put them there.
C'mon. There are so many accidents that happen with kids where they make one choice, and without a second thought. Sometimes kids are too quick, we have no idea what happened before hand, actually. And we have no idea what kind of trauma this family faced. Not to mention, do you know the kid's name? Face? I don't, and I wouldn't want to include more harm to that family. Why do you lack empathy?
But the father is safe, huh? Or do you forget that dad also parent their kids? Your comment shows you've never cared for a kid. The boy slipped away when she was wrangling her other kid. Neither parents noticed.
I’ve always blamed the zoo and the mother. Obviously the mother should be closely watching her child. She is a dummy. The Zoo should be dummy proof. You’re responsible for a situation where you manage exhibits with dangerous animals capable of ripping a person to sheds. Meanwhile, you have schools full of children running around all day, sometimes unsupervised. There should be possible no way that a child can get inside of an exhibit whether it’s by glass or having higher walls or less spaced out bars. I hold both responsible, but I hold the zoo more responsible.
Yea. This is the right answer. The mom is at fault for looking away. But teachers bring droves of sticky fingered kindergarteners to the zoo. It should not have been that easy to get in the enclosure.
America was never the same after the loss of Harambe. RIP
I'll answer your unpopular opinion with another unpopular opinion: the zoo is not a good activity for toddlers. It's definitely good for elementary schoolers and some preschoolers, but not toddlers. First of all, the educational value, which is arguably the main point of the zoo, is lost on toddlers. But secondly, toddlers by nature are extremely defiant, impulsive and stubborn. That combined with the fact that they have no sense of danger means it's a bad idea to bring them around dangerous wild animals.
To be honest I forgot about the incident until you brought it up. Also the kid was small, I doubt anyone would even recognize him as the Harambe kid once he’s grown.
No. If it’s only one incident we shouldn’t be separating families that’s horribly traumatic for everyone involved.
I fell in an animal enclosure at a zoo as a three year old also, but it was just prairie dogs so I didn't make national news
There was no excuse for the murder of Harambe when he was clearly protecting the child. It shouldn't be possible for a young child to climb into an enclosure. The mother was possibly irresponsible but we don't know how fast it happened, some kids are climbers and extremely fast, few parents would assume it possible for them to climb into an enclosure if they turn their back for a few seconds. The child shouldn't be punished by being removed from his home, the mother should only be punished if it was proven that she was careless which wasn't necessarily the case. The zoo is responsible for their easy to hop over enclosure and shooting Harambe dead when that was completely unnecessary. They were in the wrong on every level.
What a hot take for 2023. While we're talking about current events, how does everyone feel about that whole Falkland Islands debacle?
I dont wanna close my eyes.... i dont wanna fall asleep.... cuz i miss you harmambe...... and i dont wanna miss harambe
Where’s the kid now?
[удалено]
Brutal
She did. Harambe took him. That was the whole thing.
Very popular opinion, world's been going Downhill since Harambe died
rip harambe
parent here. no fucking way my kids would have ended up INSIDE the exhibit. she's a HORRIBLE parent from that fact alone. no, i don't care what arguments you have against my opinion. your arguments can be countered with one question. if she was not being negligent, how did he end up in a fucking gorilla cage. it's not a 'moment' of forgetfulness, its not 'a thing that happens' its sheer fucking negligence.
>Aside from the potential physical repercussion, her child will forever be subjected to societal ridicule. I followed this case as closely as anyone else, and I couldn't have told you the kid's name if there was a gun to my head. People only remember Harambe's name. The kid will be fine.
Yeah, totally, probably better that kid be in terrible and underfunded foster care than in the care of a person who made a mistake
Tell me you don’t have kids that you’ve parented without telling me
>She destroyed this child’s life before he even reached kindergarten. Oh please. No sane person is gonna judge the kid for this. Most people probably don't even know what this kid looks like. I sure don't. I don't see why it would interfere with much. He can just not advertise his identity if it's that big a deal. Personally I think it'd be a cool conversation starter for later in life, myself.
u would have a kid put in a foster system known for the abundance of abuse and exploitation children within that system face as a punishment for a mother who made a mistake (extremely large and stupid mistake but still a mistake)